


FFXIV Drabbles

by adexia



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Gen, Hair-pulling, Harmful healing, Hostage Situations, Hurt/Comfort, Medical Experimentation, Touch Aversion, Whump, losing voice, painful wound cleaning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-18
Packaged: 2019-06-10 16:53:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15295914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adexia/pseuds/adexia
Summary: A scholar finds himself at the mercy of some Garlean soldiers who find a chance to test an experimental serum.Fill #1 for Bad Things Happen Bingo: Harmful Healing





	1. BTHB: Harmful Healing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A scholar finds himself at the mercy of some Garlean soldiers who find a chance to test an experimental serum.
> 
> Fill #1 for Bad Things Happen Bingo: Harmful Healing

He’s bleeding out. He knows it from experience, from countless close shaves in battle with S’leine and Joy and Olina. But Aurele Moulin doesn’t have them to defend him just now, to give him the precious seconds needed to cast a spell from his book. When the Garlean knocks his precious tome out of his hands as he mumbles the incantation, he flails to grasp it again, but knows it’s a lost cause before the tome lands in the mud. He looks around desperately for his faerie, for Selene, but all that remains is a few weak sparkles drifting through the air.

Aurele is alone, and Aurele is dying.

He sinks to his knees with the realization, and isn’t even surprised when a heavy plated boot shoves him down onto his front. “Fools,” a helm-muffled voice barks. “Vibiana wanted him alive! Look how much he’s bleeding--he won’t make it back.”

“We’ve got that experimental serum, haven’t we?” a voice shoots back. “And it works, doesn’t it?” Aurele’s pointed ears prick a bit, hopeful.

The first speaker scoffs. “Wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy, but if Vibiana wants him alive, she’s getting him alive. You, bind his wrists first.”

Through his weak haze, Aurele lifts his head, spectacles sliding down his sweat-slick nose. Someone presses him harder into the mud and grabs his arms, yanking them up and behind him, wrapping his wrists with coarse rope and knotting it tight. A third soldier grabs his trailing braid, pulling his head back to expose his throat. He gasps in pain, screwing his eyes shut.

“Mages and their damned robes,” someone mutters, pulling down Aurele’s bulky cloth collar and pressing something cold and sharp to the side of his neck. He jerks his head away in surprise, but his braid is yanked and he’s pressed up against the sharp object. There’s a rush of cold fluid against--no, _into_ his neck, and the object is pulled away.

“It ought to start working shortly,” someone says. “Let’s be gone before he starts screaming.”

His face is dropped back into the mud, and shortly thereafter two people lift him up. His spectacles slide off along the way, unfocusing his world. “What,” he gasps, “what did thee mean--screaming?”

“You’ll see soon enough, I think,” one of the soldiers says as they load him into a wagon and climb in alongside him. “This is still experimental for a reason.”

Aurele doesn’t dare ask further--his strength seems to be returning, regardless. He feels the wound in his side grow warm, then hot. He feels his severed flesh slowly rejoin to itself. It feels like he’s being cauterized, an emergency procedure reserved for the most dire of situations, with no spells or potions usable. He makes a sharp inhalation, instinctively curling around himself as much as he’s able as the burning sensation spreads throughout his body, knitting together all his injuries not unlike Ifrit’s fire searing the flesh of his enthralled subjects.

He’s screaming before they’re even clear of the forest.

\---

The pain subsides to a throbbing full-body ache far too long later. His throat is raw and he feels hot and dizzy. Someone has shoved him into a corner of the wagon, out of the way, and he lies curled and trembling and soaked with sweat. Someone lifts him up and tosses him onto a cold tile floor, sending fresh jolts of pain throughout his body that makes him cry out roughly. “We’ve got the hostage for you, Captain,” someone says, pulling his head up by his braid again to show his face. It’s agony, but he feels in no shape to resist.

A dark-armored shape looms over him. “You used the serum, didn’t you?” she asks. “Interesting results. Make your report. I’ll handle this one.” There’s the unfortunately familiar sound of armor shifting in the Imperial salute, and bootsteps marching away.

“Well, well,” the Captain says, pacing back and forth before her captive. “Aurele Moulin. Not quite as famous as the Warrior of Light, but then, who is?”

Aurele takes a deep breath, forcing himself to speak. “Make thy point, Garlean.” His voice is ragged from screaming and weak from fear, and the words sound much less defiant than he’d hoped.

The Captain chuckles. “My _point_ , Master Moulin, is that you are going to bring your famous friend here to visit us.” Aurele’s blood runs cold. “And then, I am going to become famous for bringing her to Lord Zenos.”

“She--she will not fall to the likes of thee,” Aurele spits. The Captain is silent a moment. She takes a step back, then shoves her heavy plated boot into his chest and slams him backwards. Pain flares, and in his daze, he notices the searing course through his body to concentrate on his chest again.

“Do you know what I find most interesting about this serum, Master Moulin?” the Captain asks, walking back over to him. “What I find most interesting is how it continues to work after the initial effects.” Aurele grits his teeth to keep a fresh scream from ripping out of his throat. “If someone is exposed to it once, and continues to be wounded, it will continue to heal any fresh injuries for up to eight hours.” She pauses as he loses the internal struggle and shrieks, writhing on the cold floor as the heat in his chest grows unbearable. “Obviously, I do not understand the finer points of how it works, but I think our technicians would be delighted to take observations on a fresh subject while we await Mistress Rhowa’s arrival.”

\---

Aurele is beyond awareness. He blacked out from the pain what feels like hours ago, after blurry men in grey and white garments approached him with cruelly-shaped instruments and began to cut into him. His robes were torn open and shrugged down to his elbows, and they murmured to each other about what interesting effects the serum had on fresh wounds as he first screamed, then made empty vocalizations.

He is beyond agony. The slightest movement sends ripples of fire spreading across his skin and through his veins, but his voice is too broken to make a sound. Even with the serum healing his bloody throat, it’s simply given up from the strain.

He wishes he had died when he dropped his tome in the forest.

When someone lifts him off the cold metal bench he’s been left on, he instinctively thrashes against the contact, sparks of fire stretching out across his frayed nerves. Firm arms hold him tight, and someone cuts the rope from his wrists. “Get him out of here!” a voice shouts, and its familiarity would make him weep if he hadn’t used up all his tears already.

The Warrior of Light has come to his rescue.

He allows himself to sink into oblivion.

\---

Aurele is surrounded by gentle warmth and softness. He slowly opens his eyes, letting the world come into--well, not focus, not without his spectacles. Simply come into being. He doesn’t dare turn his head to look around, fearing the serum’s effects still ravaging his over-sensitive body, but he can tell by the scents and sounds that he’s in an infirmary of some sort. Probably in the Reach, if his sensitive ears are anything to go by.

A lalafellin fellow peers over his side, ears wiggling when he notices him awake. “Welcome back to the land of the living!” he greets; Aurele sighs as he recognizes the voice of Azalaya, a conjurer and fellow adventurer from their free company. “S’leine will be so happy that you’re awake. She’s been up in arms all day and night!” He pats Aurele very gently on the shoulder and pops back out of view, scampering out of sight. Moments later, he hears several sets of footsteps, and a blurry greenish shape leans over him, placing a pair of spectacles over his eyes. S’leine Rhowa comes into focus, ears pricked forward and tail lashing behind her.

“Thank the Twelve,” S’leine says, ears relaxing when she confirms that Aurele is indeed awake and lucid. “When we heard you’d been captured, we didn’t know what they might possibly do to you.”

“An’ I mean, it was obviously a trap,” Joyous Sparrow pipes up, looming over the trio of friends from the back. “But what did those louses think was gonna happen, eh? Warrior of Light jus’ hands herself over? Ye were thrashin’ somethin’ fierce when I picked ye up, though.”

Aurele tries to speak, but all he manages is a wispy gasp; Olina fetches a mug of tea without being asked, and even helps him sit up to drink it. “T’was--a serum of some kind,” he manages to get out after a few gulps. S’leine’s ears prick forward again. “An experiment. Faster healing, but--the pain--” He winces and collapses against his pillows again.

“The Resistance should know about this,” Olina murmurs to S’leine, who nods and dismisses the paladin.

“We are just glad you survived,” S’leine says, sitting at his bedside. “Take all the time needed to recover. Azalaya can work with us for a few days.”

“Nay, I--I need to be at thy side,” Aurele protests, struggling to sit again. His aching body still feels so gods-cursedly heavy after his ordeal. “The Resistance--”

Joyous pushes him back onto the cot with surprising gentleness. “Th’ Resistance needs people who aren’t fallin’ over,” she says. “Yer useless as ye are now, yeah?” He wilts under her words and feels his ears droop.

S’leine clears her throat, shooting her best friend a glare. “What Joy means is that you will be of more use to us when you have fully recovered,” S’leine says. “Please, Aurele. I do not want to have to tell Thancred you fainted on a mission because you were in pain.”

That’s an incentive if ever there was one; Aurele can’t bear the thought of making his sweetheart fret. “Aye, as thee likes,” he says, relenting. “I shall remain here until someone deems me fit for duty.”

S’leine smiles. “We will be in to see you as often as we can,” she says. “Take care not to strain yourself--Azalaya may be capable, but there is no one who can replace you as my friend.”

The dragoon and monk excuse themselves, and Aurele lets himself drift back into slumber, soothed by the distant sound of the waterfall.


	2. BTHB: Painful Wound Cleaning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Warrior of Light is caught off guard and has to seek medical attention. She doesn't enjoy it.
> 
> Fill #7 for Bad Things Happen Bingo: Painful Wound Cleaning

S’leine had expected that retaking Ala Mhigo wouldn’t end conflict immediately. There are, unfortunately, still Garlean soldiers and sympathizers who couldn’t wait to get their hands on the Warrior of Light or any of her comrades. Anytime she walks through the city, whether alone or with others, she keeps alert.

This does not prevent an explosive device from being set off inside an empty house, sending shards of glass and chunks of brick flying outwards every which-way, and sending S’leine herself flying into a wall. Ears ringing and side flaring up in pain, she draws her lance and sprang into action from her prone position.

The attackers are quickly dispatched by herself and the Resistance guards in place, S’leine pushing aside the pain as she fights. Once the dust is settled and those responsible are being escorted to a prison cell, she curses her decision to wear civilian clothes instead of armor on her way to lunch as the sharp points of pain make themselves known to her.

“Mistress Rhowa, are you unharmed?” a soldier asks, running up to her. “You seem--oh, gods, you _are_ hurt!” She gasps, looking down at S’leine’s side. S’leine reluctantly follows her gaze, hissing and pinning her ears back when she sees jagged shards of glass sticking out from rapidly spreading pools of red on her shirt and trousers.

“I think I should see a medic,” the dragoon mutters. The soldier nods quickly and, despite S’leine’s protests, escorts her to the temporary clinic. She’s very glad to see Aurele at work today, even if it means interrupting his regular duties to tend to her.

“Gods, S’leine, what has happened to thee?” the scholar cries, nearly dropping the mortar and pestle in his hands as he rushes to see to her.

The soldier explains the attack as Aurele ushers S’leine behind a curtain and starts removing the larger shards he can see. “Thee mustn’t fault thyself for these wounds,” he says. “An attack such as this cannot be predicted.”

S’leine doesn’t answer beyond a stiff nod. Her teeth are clenched and her eyes are squeezed shut. “Can you not simply cast a curative spell?” she asks.

“Nay, friend,” Aurele says grimly. “Were I to do so now, the smaller shards would be stuck inside thy body, causing rampant damage in the future.” He straightens. “I apologize, but I must have thee in thy smallclothes for the rest. I will give thee a moment whilst I fetch supplies.”

S’leine forces her eyes open, watching him go. She isn’t worried about Aurele having any untoward thoughts; not only is he a perfect gentleman, but he has expressed no desire to see any woman unclothed. She does still feel trepidation on removing her clothing, however, knowing full well that it will be painful as she is now. Regardless, she takes a deep breath and strips, not allowing herself to even whimper as the movements pull on her wounds. Shredded and stained garments set aside, she pulls up the blanket from the cot and covers her undamaged half.

Aurele re-enters momentarily, setting a basin of water and various other medical instruments on the nightstand. Before beginning, he has her drink some foul-tasting tonic, for prevention of pain and infection. “Might I have thee lie down?” he asks. “It may be easier for us both.”

“If that is what the medic orders.” S’leine mentally braces herself once again and shifts to lie on the cot, leaving her tail free on her uninjured side to swish about in agitation.

“T’is indeed,” Aurele answers, kneeling at her side. She squeezes her eyes shut again, doing her best to ignore the sensation of small forceps digging into her open wounds. She instead focuses on Yugiri--all the lovely places in Eorzea they’ll visit together once they have a chance to relax from all this, Yugiri sampling S’leine’s favorite treats that she wasn’t able to share on this campaign, the simple sight of her smile… It does calm her significantly, though that could also be the pain starting to ebb from the medicine.

Then the forceps pinch an especially tender spot and she practically yowls in pain and alarm, leaping up from the bed and instinctively clinging to the support beam on the ceiling. Aurele looks up at her, wide-eyed behind his spectacles. “A-apologies, S’leine! But, ah, thee really must come down from there…”

All her instincts are screaming for her to stay up high, but she obliges, not least because the position is making her pain worse. She lets herself drop back onto the cot, looking down sheepishly at the floor.

“If thee can’t hold still, I may have to ask for some assistance,” Aurele chides as she returns to her previous position. She groans and covers her face with the blanket as well, fully embarrassed.

The rest of the procedure goes a bit better, with Aurele taking care to avoid pinching unnecessarily unless he has a difficult time grabbing a bit. He concludes by rinsing out the wounds with warm water, and at last she hears him reciting a spell from his tome. Warm magic washes over her, and the skin knits back together absolutely painlessly.

“I pronounce thee healed,” Aurele announces. “Though, thee may want to have a bath and fetch some clean clothes first.”

“Thank you,” S’leine breathes, sitting up and stretching her still-tender muscles. A bath did sound lovely--she was covered in sweat in addition to blood after that ordeal. “And I am… _very_ sorry for jumping up like that.”

He chuckles kindly. “It’s forgiven, my friend. Take care on the way back.”


End file.
